Quotes about freedom, verified at the source

There is no crueller tyranny than that which is exercised under the shadow of the laws and with the colours of justice.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too?

I wandered lonely as a Cloud that floats on high o'er Vales and Hills, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden Daffodils.

Originally in Arabic · English translation

Do not give me the water of life in humiliation; rather give me, with honour, a cup of bitter colocynth.

Originally in Arabic · English translation

The night must clear, and the chain must break.

Originally in Arabic · English translation

You were created unbound as a passing breeze, and free as morning light in its sky.

Originally in Arabic · English translation

Staying in one place brings no ease to a thoughtful, cultivated person: leave home and travel.

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, there is a rapture on the lonely shore.

In Wildness is the preservation of the World.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; where knowledge is free.

These are the times that try men's souls.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

Originally in Arabic · English translation

If, one day, the people will to live, then fate must answer.

Traveller, there is no road; the road is made by walking.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will.

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Originally in Arabic · English translation

I have no need of homelands; no longing for return carries me back to a land I have left.

I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.

Call me Ishmael.

If there is no struggle there is no progress.

Originally in Arabic · English translation

Injustice heralds the ruin of civilization.

To be cultured is the only way to be free.

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.